'Huntsman' Leads Pack of Newcomers Atop Disc Sales

31 Aug, 2016 By: Thomas K. Arnold

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Eleven new releases debuted among the top 20 spots on the national home video sales charts for the week ended Aug. 28, with three of them cracking the top five.

Bowing at No. 1 on both the NPD VideoScan First Alert sales chart, which tracks combined DVD and Blu-ray disc unit sales, and the dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart was The Huntsman: Winter’s War, from Universal Pictures, a follow-up to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman. The fantasy action-adventure film, loosely based on characters from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale as well as Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, was a theatrical underperformer, earning just $48 million, against a budget estimated at $115 million.

Even so, demand for the DVD and Blu-ray Disc was strong enough to bump the prior week’s top seller, Sony Pictures’ The Angry Birds Movie, to No. 2, also on both charts, with the latter selling about 51% as many copies as Huntsman.

Also new to the top five was season six of popular zombie TV series "The Walking Dead,” from Anchor Bay Entertainment, which bowed at No. 3 on the overall chart and No. 4 on the Blu-ray chart.

Warner’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice slipped to No. 4 overall and No. 3 on the Blu-ray chart, down a spot on each from the previous week.

Rounding out the top five on both charts was Warner’s The Nice Guys. The action-comedy, with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, earned $36.3 million in theaters and follows two mismatched private investigators forced to team up to investigate a mystery involving the apparent suicide of a porn star in 1970s Los Angeles.

Other new releases that made the top 20 on the overall disc sales chart were season one of “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” from Anchor Bay, debuting at No. 7; Universal Pictures’ “Ratchet & Clank,” based on the popular video game, bowing at No. 9; CBS's NCIS: The Thirteenth Season, from Paramount, at No. 11; Entertainment One’s Outlaws and Angels, a gritty Western distributed by Sony Pictures, at No. 13; the 2014 Anchor Bay horror film Clown, at No. 14; another Western, Lionsgate’s The Duel, at No. 15; A&E's Roots remake, from Lionsgate, at No. 17; and the eighth and final season of ABC's "Castle," from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, at No. 19.

VideoScan Data shows Huntsman generated 59% of its total unit sales from Blu-ray Disc, compared with 42% for “Walking Dead” and 49% for Nice Guys.

On Home Media Magazine’s rental chart for the week ended Aug. 21, Universal Pictures’ The Boss shot to No. 1 now that its 28-day holdback from Redbox is over.

That bumped Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to No. 2 and The Angry Birds Movie to No. 3.

The No. 4 and No. 5 spots went to two other month-old releases that have just become available at Redbox kiosks: Barbershop: The Next Cut, from Warner, and Universal Pictures’ Hardcore Henry.

 

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